Between tears, and loud tones, and Sadie’s laughter, Julia had managed to burst forth these angry sentences before her mother’s voice reached her; when it did, she was silenced.

“Julia, I am astonished!  Is that the way to speak to your sister?  Go up to my room directly; and, when you have put on dry clothes, sit down there, and stay until you are ready to tell Ester that you are sorry, and ask her to forgive you.”

“Really, mother,” Sadie said, as the little girl went stamping up the stairs, her face buried in her muddy handkerchief, “I’m not sure but you have made a mistake, and Ester is the one to be sent to her room until she can behave better.  I don’t pretend to be good myself; but I must say it seems ridiculous to speak in the way she did to a sorry, frightened child.  I never saw a more woeful figure in my life;” and Sadie laughed again at the recollection.

“Yes,” said Ester, “you uphold her in all sorts of mischief and insolence; that is the reason she is so troublesome to manage.”

Mrs. Ried looked distressed.  “Don’t, Ester,” she said; “don’t speak in that loud, sharp tone.  Sadie, you should not encourage Julia in speaking improperly to her sister.  I think myself that Ester was hard with her.  The poor child did not mean any harm; but she must not be rude to anybody.”

“Oh, yes,” Ester said, speaking bitterly, “of course I am the one to blame; I always am.  No one in this house ever does any thing wrong except me.”

Mrs. Ried sighed heavily, and Sadie turned away and ran up stairs, humming: 

  “Oh, would I were a buttercup,
  A blossom in the meadow.”

And Julia, in her mother’s room, exchanged her wet and muddy garments for clean ones, and cried; washed her face in the clear, pure water until it was fresh and clean, and cried again, louder and harder; her heart was all bruised and bleeding.  She had not meant to be careless.  She had been carefully dressed that morning to spend the long, bright Saturday with Vesta Griswold.  She had intended to go swiftly and safely to the post-office with the small white treasure intrusted to her care; but those paper dolls were so pretty, and of course there was no harm in walking along with Addie, and looking at them.  How could she know that the hateful letter was going to tumble out of her apron pocket?  Right there, too, the only place along the road where there was the least bit of mud to be seen!  Then she had honestly supposed that a little clean water from the creek, applied with her smooth white handkerchief, would take the stains right out of the envelope, and the sun would dry it, and it would go safely to Uncle Ralph’s after all; but, instead of that, the hateful, hateful thing slipped right out of her hand, and went floating down the stream; and at this point Julia’s sobs burst forth afresh.  Presently she took up her broken thread of thought,